PARADIGM SHIFT I | BAD DECISIONS
BITTER ENDS TO THE NIGHTS / I’M ALONG FOR THE RIDE / OUT OF BREATH, OUT OF TIME / EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE - BAD OMENS
The home used to be his. His and hers. A woodland, mountain chalet that was quiet, opulent, grandiose. High ceilings, mahogany floors, granite countertops, custom-made cabinetry, a pool and a large stone deck that overviewed the Dillon Reservoir in Colorado. They’d purchased it, giggles in their voices, and they’d picked everything out together. It was as much his as hers, and they’d once been happy in it. Before they’d picked up and moved to Garrison, before they’d given up everything they had for his fuck-up of a family. This was their everything.
He still had a key. Aaron had never made him return it, and he’d never bothered to do so anyway. He was surprised when it still worked – or maybe the door was already unlocked, but he’d shown up with the rest of the CONQUEST roster over at Pro Wrestling EXCELLENCE after their second successful show that saw him at the opposite end of a win at the hands of Aiden Reynolds, and that was simply because he’d gotten so fed up with the fucking Australian that he’d slung him around the ring and gotten himself disqualified. His boss said that if he’d use his finishers, he’d be out so quickly. While it was cathartic to have Aiden’s head bouncing off the mat with a dull thud, it cost him.
Everything had a price.
He envisioned it. It wasn’t quite as good as his win over Jack Washington, slamming his head into the mat with the same conscientious vigor. But in slow motion, he could see the surprise in Aiden’s face as he vaulted himself over the man, hooked his arm around his neck and brought both of their weights down into the canvas and wood. The bell had been instantly rung and Aiden held his head, but the damage was done. Finn stood over him with his busted lip pouring a river of red onto his chin, an almost sadistic smirk crossing his expression. The crowd rallied for the Australian favorite, but he didn’t care. He’d never cared about what they wanted. He showboated for the fans, but if they booed him, who the fuck cared?
Nevertheless, the General Manager – who happened to be his ex-wife – held an after-work party at their old abode on Swan Mountain. He’d arrived at the behest of his newest trouble-making friend, the contortionist and all-around rabble-rouser, Sybil Halter. He wasn’t going to go. He didn’t want to walk into this house again and relive all the bad memories that would continue to haunt him just as much as the good ones. But he still showed up. He still walked through that wooden, opulent door. He’d still arrived, and he’d still grabbed the only bottle of Jameson that was there.
He’d stopped drinking years ago. Sobriety was hard, but he’d made it. But Sybil…fuck, with everything going on with Kayla, he couldn’t keep himself from imbibing.
Extrapolation on sobriety, where he was mentally
Finn leaned back against the wooden back of the chair, fingers wrapped tightly around the neck of the whiskey bottle. The flames of the fire pit rose into the air, cracking and dancing in a myriad of ways. It was mesmerizing, the way it shimmered and swayed. He was by himself – he’d made it that way. He didn’t feel like parlor tricks with Sybil and he didn’t feel like small talk with Aiden and Kallie. Their match was all business, and it didn’t change the fact that they still lived in his house. He didn’t want to watch Bella’s face, he didn’t want to deal with Aaron’s disapproval. He just didn’t.
He just wanted to be alone. Why was that so difficult?
He’d closed his eyes for only a moment, he felt like. And yet, he could feel her presence. He could hear the click-clack of her heels against the stone. Long strides, ones he’d gotten used to hearing. When she wasn’t wrestling, she had a habit of appearing provocative, particularly when she wanted to hone in a point. She might have been comfortable enough to wear sweatpants and her hair up in a ponytail – and that was, honestly, much more preferable if he was being honest – in his presence, but there were just those few moments where she tried to entice him. The moments she thought he wasn’t even noticing.
It took everything for him to stay away. EVERYTHING.
His career mattered. His life mattered. Engaging in fucking chaos with her would ruin everything. He knew it would. She’d take him with her black-coated talons, bequeath unto him hope and serenity, and give him everything that he wanted. He would fall into supporting her and her only, he wouldn’t maintain focus on his journey, wouldn’t be able to handle his own priorities when he was constantly elevating hers. He would forsake his own progress to only find pride in her achievements. And when all was good and well, she would turn those talons of hers to his chest and rip his heart out. He’d give up everything for her, and she would walk on him. She would leave him desolate, alone, destroyed. Just like he’d been before. She relished in destroying lives, didn’t she?
This time, the bottom of the bottle wouldn’t save him. It would be his end.
He couldn’t.
And yet…
Her hands slid down his shoulders, wrapping around his chest as she knelt down and leaned into him. She was just as warm as the fire was. He didn’t move, but his fingers tightened around the bottle. Maybe if he didn’t move, she would leave. Maybe if he froze, she would realize that he wasn’t what she wanted. Maybe if he acted like she wasn’t there, she’d get frustrated with his rejection one more time and finally put an end to all of it.
But she didn’t. Her breath was warm on the back of his neck as she pressed her nose into it, nuzzling him slightly. “You should do that again and again.” Her words were low, deceiving, though clear with her accent. He could feel his pulse begin to beat faster. He swallowed. She pulled back slightly. “I kinda like it when you spike their heads into the mat.”
Nothing sputtered from his lips. An ‘I know’ would be too much of an invitation. Of course he knew she liked when the matches got a little more violent than the last. Anything else in his response would lead to more of a disaster. So he did what he was the worst at: he stayed silent.
Her body language didn’t adjust. She took her hands from hugging him to running down the sides of his arms, glossing over his tattoos with a smile on her face. He didn’t have to look at her in order to know it was there. “And I’m a champion again.” She added – her voice carried pride in herself for proving that heroes didn’t always win. “Queen of the Internet.”
“Congratulations.”
“Why, thank you, Finn,” the grin was apparent in her voice as she took hold of his hands and slid her fingers between his. Her chin rested on his shoulder. “Soon, you’ll have everything at your own fingertips too.”
“Eventually.” And it was true. He would eventually have everything in his hands. Her. Championships. The championship. The World Heavyweight one within his fingers, handled with clenched claws that would take and burn everything mercilessly, unforgiving and unrelenting.
She let go of him, but didn’t stray far. Kayla crossed the way, her black hair falling across her face gently in loose, placed curls. Her makeup was immaculate, and her provocative clothing hugged her in all the right places. Finn dangled the Jameson bottle from his fingertips and he exhaled slowly out of his nose. It was difficult to be such an ass to her all the time, but at the same time…what else could he do? Give in?
No.
She peered at him with her brown eyes, looking over him as he leaned forward, dropping his head slightly. “I’m still mad at you.”
“I know. I didn’t expect that to change.”
“Let’s let it lie where it lies tonight…” Kayla said, looking at him and cocking her head to the side. She leaned forward, adopting his stance. “Why are you mad at me?”
Finn tilted his head to the side. He stared at her, peering through his cerulean eyes with a question in his features. It was true. He was mad at her. He hated how she made him feel, hated how she set him off and on his guard at the same time. Hated that she buried herself within his psyche so completely that he couldn’t separate himself from her. Never had he ever wanted to be reliant on someone else again, but even now, he realized that she was one of the reasons he kept going, kept trying to persevere. He wanted to rise to the top against all odds again because that was who he was, but there was the ever-bitty small part of himself that wanted to make himself good for her.
What a fucking bad decision.
“I’m not.” He started. If he expressed his feelings, expressed what he was thinking, it would be the death of him.
“Bullshit.” She knew better. They sat for a moment, before she leaned forward, kneeling down on her knees and walking her way across the firepit towards him. She set her hands on his knees and tilted her head, looking up at him. “You’re mad at me.”
He sighed, looking away from her finally. The fire and the flames danced in front of his eyes as he tried to avoid her stare. “You keep me from realizing my potential.”
She said nothing. He didn’t even expect her to.
“You keep me from focus. You keep me from being the best I can be in the ring.” He stated more, adding slowly with rising venom in his voice. “You keep me from excelling at what I do best because I can’t focus on my matches and what I want. I keep focusing on what we could do, what we could be and I don’t have time for that. I don’t have time for you fucking me up. I don’t have patience to sit through making us something only to have it fall apart because this is a fucking game to you.”
It was more words than he’d spoken in a long time. And even if he hadn’t wanted to say it, he still did. He still spoke to her, he was still honest with her. And that was difficult, because even at this point, even if he wanted to focus on his rise to stardom in Sin City, hold onto his championship at Next Level, become something more anywhere else he wanted to walk, it would always come back to fucking Kayla.
She was his bad decision.
She was his bane.
She was his fucking end.
“You know deep down that this isn’t a game, Finn…I-”
“Don’t.”
He shook his head and looked back at her. She pursed her lips and tilted her said, accommodating. Smiling. Softly, but ever so cynically. “But–”
“Don’t. I don’t have time for this, I don’t have time for you.”
“But Finn, I lo–”
Thunder struck, the rumble of the heavens sounded, and Finn crashed upwards, the blankets of his black comforter around his feet as he was thundered awake. He stared at the dark walls, frowning as sweat dripped down the back of his neck. He’d been sleeping, but he’d been so certain of the smell of her, the crackle of the flame, the light that danced across her face as he looked at her.
He stomped out of his bed, ran to the adjoining bathroom and splashed water on his face.
She was fucking him up.
And he couldn’t.
He couldn’t do this with Kayla. He couldn’t do this whole fucking thing with her and still be the wrestler that he wanted to be. He couldn’t have both. He couldn’t take everything in the world that he wanted and be fearsome. She couldn’t be his right hand. He couldn’t be a champion and have her.
He couldn’t.
And yet…
• • • • • •
Arrogance.
Everyone in this match coming up holds arrogance in the palm of their hand. Each every single one of you, all you have within you is fucking arrogance. Hell, everyone in this fucking sport holds some form of arrogance, and it bleeds out when we have matches like this. A chance for the new pretty shiny thing that the men in the back are going to put up to us like they fucking matter, and two previous world champions where one continually gets shots even though he’s been dropped by better time and time over, and the other appears, disappears, reappears and maybe, just fucking maybe can get over himself for about two point five seconds like he got over his fucking haircut a few weeks ago.
All of you are fucking arrogant.
But none of you have the right to even be.
Last week, it was one and done. Jack Washington put his all into the match. I put my all into this match. But if we’re being accurate, it wasn’t me that had anything to lose. Everyone in this fucking company equates me to be that motherfucker who decides to use weapons as a means to an end. Look at what Washington had to say, after all. In his mind – no, in everyone’s minds, I’m that bro in the back that is trying to edgelord their way up to the top. They don’t give a flying fuck who I am, what I’ve done, what I could do – nah, instead, they’re all so fucking busy ramming as big of a fucking shovel of false gold up their own asses and hoping they can stretch their fuckin’ hole wide enough that someone will be able to see the gaping black hole of a miserable failure that they are from space.
There are no fucking Whales in this sport, Jackie, unless you’re counting some cunts that used to be in this company that needed to lay off of catering.
But how did it feel? How does it feel to be knocked off your own fucking pedestal by a six-foot-four fucking nobody? Jack, how does it feel to project the bullshit that happened to you in your own high school life out onto other people in a pedantic plea for you to be recognized for what you are. You grew up fighting, right? All of us grow up fighting. Tell me one person in this world that didn’t have a rough time growing up and then not turning around to be the biggest fucking whiny shit in the entirety of Sin City. You’re better than me, hm?
That fucking Fenian Rising took off your goddamned head and I’m not even fucking sorry.
So while you spent your day railing about how fucking stupid I am and who I was, who is the one with egg on their face now? Because it certainly isn’t me – but a word to the wise…reading a list of personality traits about who someone is is far different than someone that’s on a piece of paper and using that as your background? Not the easiest nor best thing for you to do. It didn’t work, and neither did your achievement of putting me in the ground.
You didn’t shine bright, motherfucker.
You’re about as dull as fucking neanderthal Goth over here that I have to face in a goal to become something that none of you have ever seen before. Shut the fuck up and bury yourself in the hole that you crawled out of, Jacky. Fucking stay there.
And while I’m sure Chris Page is going to start equating everything to every little step he’s ever taken in XWF and how many shits he takes at the Velvet Rabbit, I’m also certain that Goth is going to spend a good amount of time boring us with the details of his rise to stardom again through the failure of Jackie Wash-wash and his ultimate demise at the hands of a star who doesn’t spend thirty-thousand years detailing the things that don’t fucking matter.
This is the thing that I’ve noticed about this company over and over again. We like to mention people that don’t fucking matter. I have stood above the depths of despair and seen the sorrows of many men that have crossed my path over and over and over again. People that I have wrestled against in the early nineteen-hundreds are in my list of mentions, but where the fuck are they now? In a path to be different than everyone fucking else on this roster, Goth goes overboard trying to tie in his past to every fucking moment of his career.
No one gives a flying fuck what happened six months ago, much less a year or two or ten.
No one gives a fuck what happened last week.
So how many more times is Goth going to sit there and tell me that he’s dismantled me? That he’s killed my will? I listened the first couple of times and then I started to realize that I was looking at someone who also fucking projects their own goddamned pedantic bullshit in finery onto the rest of the roster. There’s a reason you lost to fucking Lachlan. Did that hurt? How high and mighty that you thought you were, and yet, here you are now, titleless and fallen to a member of the gym that you all so abhor? Are you going to stand there, your hands folded in prayer like a priest that no one wanted and talk to us like we’re all so sycophantic and idiotic that we could even imagine ourselves to fail? Or are you going to talk about the Saviors like they matter?
Hint: you don’t. Mac Bane is slowly becoming irrelevant and you? You tried to cash in on a cow that is dwindling into hell. It’s like Goth is the bus driver on the bus that leads them all into the underworld where no one will tread because we don’t even want to fucking follow you, much less see you there.
You’re a stain on this company. As many attibutions of your accomplishments rise to the surface, you fail to also note your flaws. You’re clunky. You’re slower than a sloth. Me being frustrated in the past about facing you? I don’t care. You hold no worth to me, and you never have.
Here, let me reflect back to when you faced me on your own terms. Was I at my best? No. Did I look like I even gave a sliver of a shit? No. You talked about yourself on a plethoric rise of your fucking ego and extremely large fucking head about how much you you you you you you. You are doing all these wonderful things, you’re equating people to other people, but you’re talking about how you sit on the precipice of your own personal gains and that you’re wonderful and that you’re the best fucking thing to sit on this roster and yet…
You failed.
You failed.
You fucking failed.
Over and over and over again we all rise and we all fall, but you can’t even look in the mirror long enough to see your own faults and failures. How many times have you fallen to men better than you in this company and then turned around and sounded the exact fucking same the week after? You can use your intellectual verbiage and try to sound and act better than everyone on this roster, try to sound and be better than me, but when it comes down to it? You’re a fucking numbskull with no interesting attributes except that you have big fucking feet and an ugly ass girlfriend.
You wanted to talk long ago about me wanting everything to be handed to me on a silver platter.
You know what?
Yep. And you want to know why?
When you’ve traveled as much as I have, when you’ve been at the top for as long as I have, when you’ve been as good as I have and have the recognition for it across several countries, companies and capitulations, you expect to be treated as good as they’re just fucking giving to Chris Page. I am one of the best wrestlers to grace this company, and I will be damned if I see you treat me like an imbecilic fool of the same caliber of a man who talks to a fucking cactus. It’s easy in this company to be a gimmicked piece of shit with their foot out in a drag queen venue while sucking the left toe of someone else within management, and it’s extremely easy to be someone that thinks with their head in the clouds – oblivious, self-serving, and defiant of the things that truly matter.
Wrestling.
Fights.
Not words. Not how infinitely intelligent we sound.
It’s how we take the fight and I am so ready to lob off your fucking head and hit a home goddamn fuckin’ run.
So no, you got it right on the head: I don’t care what you have to say. I don’t care what you have coming out of the drivel that is your goddamned mouth. I don’t care that you’re a complete piece of shit. I don’t care that you’ve done all these things. THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS. Are we clear? Your so-called meteoric rise, while mediocre in all of its entirety, ends. I am done with, Goth. Done with your gatekeeping, your bullshit, your speeches, you in general. You’re not innovative. You’re not interesting. You are less than the gum that I pulled off my shoe this morning when I stepped into the streets of New York City.
You are lesser than everyone in this company. You are just as bad as the people you argue with you because you’re just like them. You have been handed every single shot you’ve ever recieved here not because of your hard work – no, if this were my company, you would have been booked against Bill Barnhart for a few weeks like I was stuck doing. Of course my fucking will to wrestle dwindled – because my fucking will to live massively failed in that time. You’ve no idea how many times I stared at the rope backstage wishing it was a fucking noose.
Please don’t report me to human resources, I’m really okay. I’m not going to cut myself, I promise.
Oh so sorry, was I mean?
Hold on. Let me reiterate.
Garbage is as garbage does, Goth. You belong in the dumpster fire outside, not in my ring.
And while we’re speaking of garbage, let’s talk about the new shiny piece of rotting carbon that they’ve brought in from XWF. I’m fairly certain, if we’re being honest, there’s a drive to pull people out from the sunshine and into the depths of Las Vegas. If we want to talk people who are shinier than a dime, and worth even less, of course we can talk about Chris Page.
You know, the Chris Page that jumps around to company after company sounding the exact same.
The Chris Page that comes in with guns blazing and a fire in his step, but when he starts failing, he disappears.
The one that keeps bringing up XWF like it matters. Like they have a roster of men and women who are decent fucking human beings. Yeah. I said it. We can all paint stripes on an orange cat, but that doesn’t make it a tiger, Page. And you? Yeah, it’s nice you’ve done all this shit, and it’s nice that they want to put a shiny little silver hat on you and call you relevant, but let’s face it – you’re on your retirement run, and it’s only a matter of time before someone says something mean to you and you whine about it on your fucking podcast.
You’ve talked about being a shining beacon, but you’re a shining piece of hypocritical bullshit. Let’s talk about the fact that you bring in irrelevant bullshit into every promo I’ve ever seen you do, because you promo like you came out of the early twenties. Call out men for what they look like, try to find something personal about them that you can dig your teeth in and pull back. You think it’s like a game of Battleship.
D5, insult about family. D6, insult hair color. D7, puff self up to be greater than you are like an implant. Boom! Sink!
But Chris, implants go bad over time. They become inflexible, rigid, hard, and eventually, they break down and pop…and then it just really isn’t pretty, is it? You become saggy, and you become a hazard. And while I’m sure you’ve heard all of this before, let’s look at it this way too…you think you deserve better than you do, and I doubt you came in here without signing in your contract that the only way you were going to wrestle for Sin City was if you got an immediate shot at a title you don’t fucking deserve.
I said it.
Everyone else in your little enterprises group seems to have the same overinflated ego that you do – that you matter in the grand scheme of things, that we can’t exist without you.
Funny concept.
You’re not going to like it.
But we can.
I can exist without your demands. I can exist without your buffoonery. I can exist without you mucking up my ring with your bullshit. From FIGHT! to Pro Wrestling EXCELLENCE to XWF to CULT to whatever the fuck dumbshit company that actively projected you to be a hit but ultimately realized you were a goddamned dud in the making, I’m not interested in Sin City becoming another stop on your way to try and make yourself relevant. I’m not interested in watching you take your theatrics and your pull in of “notable” figures in this game to aggrandize yourself and make you look like you’re the cream of the crop.
I’m not interested in you coming into my company and making it the Chris Page show when none of give a flying fuck who you are.
You are the man that every company hates having because you don’t know how to adjust yourself to the company and make it better. You think your mere presence does something, but you know what it does? It makes people vomit. It makes people quit. It makes us all wonder why the fuck we aspire to anything because Chris Page gets what Chris Page wants and not because he’s good at what he does, but because he’s a giant fucking crybaby who blasts you when you call him out.
So no, Chris. I’m not going to worship you. I’m not going to say that you joining the roster that we have laid out in front of us is even good. I’m not going to even say that we’re lucky to have you.
I’d like to first introduce you to my fist, followed by my foot, and then the fucking door when you get knocked to the goddamn curb and don’t get your way. You represented how many wrestlers in CCPE? I don’t see any of them sitting at the top of this company, and I don’t see any of them sitting at the top of their companies. Joe Montuori thinks he’s better than he is. He’ll get a rude awakening. Dane Preston? Whining.
You?
Irrelevant and not worth anything. I’m going to enjoy ending your shortlived rise ascension…you know, the one that doesn’t exist. I knew Dickie’s mama had better instincts than he did.
Also, note:...I don’t have to mention other people surrounding me to make me look better.
I can do that on my own.
Just like I’ve sat in Wolfslair, but I’ve always been on my own. Raven a couple of weeks ago had the audacity to come at me and my group, but he failed to realize that while I back it, while I represent it…I am not it. It’s not my identity, and honestly, if you wanted to insult Wolfslair, cool….you wouldn’t be the first and you certainly aren’t the last. But the last man in this four way for this championship is someone that I know fairly well. At least…I did. You know.
The man who cut off all his hair and got a few tattoos and thought that made him scary.
I’ve watched him walk through wrestlers since he returned. Armageddon. Raven last week. I know what Austin wants to do is be this intimidating hulk of a man who destroys everyone and everything that he comes in contact with…
But I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.
No.
I’m not afraid of Austin James Mercer. I’m not afraid of the name, I’m not afraid of the family attributions, I’m not afraid of what he’s become, who he is, what he may or may not have done. The truth of the matter is that he’s not ready to be here. A former SCW World Champion, I’m sure that he fits the mold of everything that this company wants, but he’s not ready.
You can’t give a broken man a shot at redemption when they’re not ready for it.
You can’t give a broken man anything until they’ve repaired themselves.
AJM is a fuckin’ broken man. A man who will do anything to make himself known, a man who is crying out for fucking attention and desire after he’s lost everything dear to him. His wife is dead. He is alone. And so he reaches out to try and crush everyone else to find some sort of understanding about himself. Maybe answer why he’s had such a rough lot in life. The death of his father, the death of our mutual relative…fuck that bitch tho.
The death of his wife.
Crazy is as crazy does, and I am ready, willing and able to put crazy down.
This is my wrestling ring. This is my place to be. And I am gunning for that championship.
This may be my ticket to the top, and even if I do fail here, I’m not going to stop until I am standing across from the belt. Because right now? The hot potato of the title indicates that it could be anyone taking it. Anyone.
But eventually, it will be mine.
It will be my own.
And then?
None of you will be able to fucking stop me.
Good fucking luck.
All of you are going to need it.
